Conventional optical network protection models allow dedicated protection capacity such as 1+1 or shared protection capacity such as bi-directional line switched rings (BLSR), multiplex section-shared protection ring (MS-SPRING) and shared mesh restoration. Protection capacity when dedicated is allocated to a specific customer service instance. Sharing of protection capacity reduces network capacity relative to dedicated protection capacity. Protection capacity may also be designed for single or multiple simultaneous failures. It is further possible to separate the protection capacity resources from the working capacity resources to optimize cost as well as to take advantage of electrical layer restoration. For example, working capacity may utilize all-optical express paths sharing protection via shared meshed optical-electrical-optical paths such as described in Ranganathan et al., “Express lightpaths and shared protection in optical mesh networks,” 28th European Conference on Optical Communication, 8-12 Sep. 2002. With the transition to packet based services, such as in a Carrier Ethernet Network, protection capacity may become isolated to individual Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). This may result in inefficient use of network resources.